Loma Linda Messages

J. A. Burden to G. H. Heald, Mar. 4, 1908

(Portion of letter from Elder Burden to Dr. Heald, dated Mar. 4, 1908.)

... By the way, we are having some very serious consideration concerning our medical school, and I will write you our ideas a little at length, as you doubtless have heard a good deal of controversy over the point. I understand you had the matter up at Washington, and decided that it was out of the question for you to conduct a medical school. LLM 361.4

The instruction to us was plain that we should make our [school] “as strong as possible for nurses and physicians”; that some must be qualified to stand at the head of our medical work; that it was not necessary for them to go outside to get the necessary preparation, and other like statements just as clear. So we have moved forward in harmony with the light until we have come to a place where something must be done to arrange for the permanency of the school; that is to say, we have now seven or eight students who have about completed their first year of the Medical course, and want to know what about the second. This will necessitate additional facilities, and more teaching force. Thus far, we have carried the work quite largely with ourselves; that is, the three sanitarium doctors, myself as Bible instructor, and with what assistance we could get here and there, and Professor Price in some lines of scientific study. LLM 361.5

What we feel we need is about fifteen thousand dollars to erect a school building and equip it with laboratories. Then aside from this, we need a clinic in San Bernardino, which is five miles distant, where we could do the necessary dissecting, and the students could get in touch with certain classes of cases that would be helpful to them. LLM 362.1

Aside from this, we would like to plan for a small hospital at Loma Linda, at which we could receive patients for a dollar a day for all medical care, treatment, and board. I think (649) then we would be able, with two more physicians, to give all that is necessary for qualifying students for their medical work in connection with this message. LLM 362.2

California has thrown the door wide open for us to organize a medical school after our own principles, the only restriction is that all students entering shall have a high school preparation, and shall pass the State Board in ten fundamental medical studies. Surgery and Materia Medica are thrown out. LLM 362.3

Now with such an opening before us, and with the instruction from the Spirit of God, it seems to me it is rank unbelief to hesitate because we cannot have a medical college that will meet the standard of the world. We are instructed over and over again that most that is now considered essential in the medical course is positively unnecessary, it is mere rubbish, and is as useless as the maxims of the Scribes and Pharisees; that many of the intricacies which the student's mind has to spend hours delving in, is a positive injury to the brain and unfits them for the real medical missionary work that God wants carried forward. We are also instructed that we should study the Bible more and the theories of the medical profession less, and our scientific knowledge will have greater soundness; that if the students follow the prescription of the great Medical Missionary for finding rest, which is to take up actual medical missionary work in the cities and towns, that they will find the real truth and solve this question of mind cure that has led the world astray. LLM 362.4

Because of the position I have had to stand in in the medical work in Southern Calif., my mind is deeply exercised, and I can but feel that our brethren, general and local, are missing the mark in their duty toward this question of the medical school. Every time it is mentioned, their thoughts seem to run immediately to the question of how we can compete with the world (650) in its facilities for research and investigation. Then, too, they seem to think that nothing can be done short of investment of fifty or sixty thousand dollars for facilities. Of course, I know that all these things can go on unlimited, but I am also well aware of the fact, known to all who have had any knowledge of the development of medicine in the past few years, that many of the medical colleges twenty years ago did not possess an equipment costing ten thousand dollars, and their instructors certainly were not as well qualified to fit people for their professional duties as our physicians nowadays. LLM 362.5

If the world could do the work that God is calling for, then we need not undertake it; but the very fact that the whole trend of the worldly education, medical and otherwise, is away from the truth, is what has emphasized the necessity for our establishing schools at such an expense and outlay of time and men and money where Christian principles and education can be inculcated into the young that they may not be led away with enticing mysticisms of science falsely so called. LLM 363.1

We understand this question is to be referred to the General Committee Council to be held in April. I hope, Doctor, you will be studying into this matter from the light of the testimonies, and be prepared to cast your influence where the Lord would have you. There is nothing clearer to my mind than that God is calling just now for a reorganization of the medical branch of the educational work and the publishing work and the evangelistic work. LLM 363.2

As long as the Christian is in the world, he is under the temptation to be molded after the world; and just [so] the church and the gospel are affected by the surrounding worldly influences and is constantly turning away from the simplicity of the truth committed to us. Sister White has again and again said to me in connection with the development of our work here in Southern California that we needed to get back to first principles, that our medical (651) work is farther from the truth now than when we first started. And we who have studied the outworking of the situation at Battle Creek certainly must be convinced that a perversion has come in. LLM 363.3

If I can find time to do so, I will write you more at length upon this subject before the Council. I hope that you will give it serious thought, for I understand that the Washington brethren have turned the matter down, feeling that it would be impossible for them to think of such a thing as having a medical school for the graduation of physicians in any line of medical education beyond a superficial fitting up, or what they may call medical missionary training. Whatever may be their duty, we have been instructed that we should plan for the qualifying of men and women “with all the ability of physicians to labor, not in professional lines, but as medical missionary evangelists.” LLM 363.4

I can see readily how that the true education will turn the mind and heart of the physician into evangelistic lines even while he works professionally, because his work, the same as that of the minister, is to restore the moral image of God in the soul. It is a work of teaching as well as healing. But the facts are, as you well know, that when a physician is turned out of the worldly medical school, the very mold and bent of his mind is so largely a scientific study and investigation and view of things that it is hard for him to take the gospel view of the situation and realize that at best he is only a channel through which the Holy Spirit must communicate its life-giving power, not only in a spiritual sense, but likewise through what we call the natural agencies.... LLM 364.1

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